Sunday, 18 January 2009

If you're new to this blog site and want to understand this latest post (which I hope you do), you need to scroll down to my post about The Essaouira Gnawa and World Music Festival 2008.

For regular readers, you may be wondering why yet again I'm writing about Ki-Mani Marley's rendition of this song at the festival.

The truth is that John gave me a CD of his recording of the Ki-Mani's performance (taken from the famous balcony) and I've been playing it none stop in my car and loving it more each time I play it.

And in particular, this track - "No Woman No Cry" - gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. And it's all to do with audience participation. At the beginning of the song, the audience cheer (and it was an enormous audience) but when they realise that it's this particular song, one of his dad's best, they roar with approval and it's just fantastic. And then we all sang along without him and then he joined in. And the more I hear it, the happier I am, and I can be driving along the M3 singing my heart out and reliving that fantastic evening and that fantastic festival.

You really get that 'roar' effect more clearly on just an auditory CD but it's certainly discernible on John's daftnotstupid You Tube site. You also get the visual effect of Ki-Mani Marley's energy and the dancing of the audience (although John's camera work is a little shaky at times).

So, I implore you to watch/listen to this track, especially exciting if you put the volume on high and I defy you not to feel uplifted.

And since John has shown me, just as I write, how to include a direct link on my blogs, all you need to do is click here and hey presto, you're on the actual track. If you don't do this, you're missing a treat! ENJOY !!!